Kukla's Korner Hockey

Category: NHLPA

Does anyone believe the NHLPA would stand for the lenient sentences leveled by the league against headhunting concussion-inducing miscreants if a player whose career was destroyed by a series of brain injuries was there to present a case for victims’ rights and safety in the workplace on a daily basis?

Instead there is silence, the silence of the lambs of the NHLPA.

There is no other issue at the moment for the union other than this one. Why can’t advisor Donald Fehr actually advise the players on the critical nature of safety in the workplace? Or maybe the former executive director of the MLBPA thinks the long-terms effects of concussions are as benign as the long-terms effects of taking steroids.

If I’m an NHL player, I’m not counting on getting any escrow payments back this season. In fact, the way things are looking, they might even need to sock away some more for when the nasty escrow man comes calling after this season.

When the NHL set this year’s escrow payments at 18 percent, it must have been looking at its own dismal attendance figures. Last year, players paid 12.9 percent of their salaries in escrow, which meant they gave more than $207 million back to their employers.

But if bums in the seats are any indication, things aren’t about to get better anytime soon, either for the league or the players. That’s because attendance, which is by far the league’s most prominent cash cow, is trending downward in almost every way imaginable.

For a moment during Hockey Night In Canada, Mike Milbury seemed ready to pull off his shoe and use it on Ian Pulver. The big guy was sputtering over Pulver’s rules-are-rules attitude to a suggested solution for an NHL problem.

Pulver, a Bob Goodenow acolyte and now a player agent, defended during the Hotstove segment the regime of Goodenow, the former NHL Players’ Association executive, to which Milbury, face red, said, “That was the most untrusting guy in the goddamned world.”

There are a number of NHL players currently wearing soft-capped shoulder pads. If NHL general managers have their way, these shoulder pads will be mandatory next season.

Kris King, the NHL’s VP of hockey operations has been overseeing the initiative for five years and is in the process of finalizing guidelines for manufacturers with the goal of outfitting all NHL players in time for the 2010-11 season.

NEW YORK / TORONTO (November 17, 2009) – The National Hockey League® (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) together raised more than $650,000 in support of Hockey Fights Cancer and other cancer-related organizations during October’s Awareness Month.

More than half-a-million fans attended Hockey Fights Cancer Awareness Nights that were hosted by each NHL club, helping to raise funds for local charities. Broadcasters also participated in the awareness nights through extensive coverage of the initiative. More than 11 million viewers tuned in and watched these telecasts through national and local television coverage, and streaming online via NHL GameCenter Live.

“It’s been a mess for years and years and years. I don’t think people we’ve had in there before Paul Kelly were helping it at all. There are a lot of untrustworthy people who have done some untrustworthy things.

“I’ve seen a lot of mishandling of money, mishandling of arbitration cases, mishandling of hiring help for the PA that has been a waste of the PA’s money. They need to do something right now to get some legitimacy back into the organization and bring some strength to the players and bring some honesty and trustworthiness between the players and the people who are heading the PA. Before we get that, we’re going to struggle with our membership.”

TORONTO (November 12, 2009) – The National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) today announced that the NHLPA Executive Board has voted to establish two committees. The first committee will review the NHLPA’s constitution. The second committee will begin the search process for a new Executive Director.

A committee has been formed to review and very likely rewrite the National Hockey League PA’s constitution.

Dallar Stars goaltender Marty Turco, Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, along with Florida Panthers forward Dominic Moore and Buffalo’s Steve Montador have been appointed by the PA’s executive board to conduct a thorough study of the unions constitution, as well as determine any necessary changes.

Sources say the group of four will begin their work in the very near future, a project one NHL player says will be the first step in the rebuilding of a strong union.

Paul Kelly (Newton Highlands, Mass.) should be reinstated as executive director of the NHL Players’ Association. That is because he is the best man available for the job.

And he is better than anybody that the bumbling union could possibly sign on for more millions of dollars. The resignation en masse of the anti-Kelly bloc underlines an important point.

The plot to oust Kelly has been exposed. Unfortunately, his illegal ouster took place before the plotters resigned from their assorted NHLPA posts. That includes Ron Pink and Ian Penny. Finally, on Sunday, Buzz Hargrove, the so-called ombudsman, also resigned from the NHLPA.

Even though Don Fehr has been brought aboard as a consultant to the NHLPA, that should not mean that Kelly cannot be reinstated. That is unless Fehr is stupid, jealous or influenced by Penny; which we fear.